Out of 110 entries, I’ve just drawn the three winners, selected by a random number generator:
#73 – Cityslipper
#56 – Candice
#55 – Brenda Kula

Congratulations, y’all! I’ll email you today to get your addresses. To everyone who commented, thank you for sharing your favorite water-saving tips! It’s heartening to see that so many people in all kinds of climates are conscious of their water use and interested in conserving.

I have a big announcement, my friends! I’m writing a new book, a follow-up to Lawn Gone! that’s all about how to garden with less water. Or perhaps a better way of describing it is, it’s about honoring water in your garden.

No matter where you live, whether you contend with drought or are blessed with regular rain, water gives life. As we’ve all grown more conscious of the environmental impact of our gardening practices — from dusting the garden with chemicals to mowing and watering an expanse of thirsty lawn — we’re learning to create beauty that’s more in tune with our changing climate, and that isn’t wasteful of our most precious natural resource: clean water.

While visiting a xeriscape garden near Phoenix last spring, I was moved by an insightful proverb engraved on the rim of a steel container pond: “The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives.” Nor must we. Now I don’t claim to be a paragon of water conservation, but I’m doing what I can and learning more every day, making small changes that add up to big water savings, and getting more out of the water I do use. I hope you’ll join me on the journey.

The book will come out early next year, in February 2016, published by the awesome team at Ten Speed Press. I’ll keep you updated on its progress. I’m really excited about this topic, and I can’t wait to share it with you!

Right now though, I feel like keeping the party vibe going. To thank you for reading and visiting Digging, I’m giving away THREE signed copies of my book Lawn Gone! Low-Maintenance, Sustainable, Attractive Alternatives for Your Yard, which the Dallas Morning News called “an excellent guide…if this is the year you reduce your lawn footprint or get rid of it altogether.” Here are the details:

GIVEAWAY!

What: An autographed copy of Lawn Gone! to THREE lucky winners

How to Enter: Leave a comment on THIS post and tell me ONE thing you do to conserve water in your garden. It can be anything, from planting some native plants, to collecting rainwater, to using drip irrigation or soaker hoses, to reducing your lawn, to watering in the morning instead of the afternoon. Just one thing. I bet you are doing something!

Who: One entry per person. Open to residents of the continental U.S. only, please, due to shipping costs. I’ll draw 3 winners at random.

When: Giveaway ends at 1 p.m. central time on Monday, February 9. I’ll announce the winners that day here and in a new blog post. Please check back to see if you’ve won.

I don’t know what people called the strip of grass between street and sidewalk before Lauren Springer Ogden coined the term “hellstrip” to describe it. But it can surely be hellish to maintain, drying to a crisp in hot climates, contaminated with road salt in northern climates, treated by passing dogs as a toilet, subject to utility company digging, with soil compacted by garbage bins, people exiting cars, and even the occasional errant vehicle. It’s really a wonder that anything will grow there.

Many homeowners spend way too much time and money trying to keep lawn alive in such inhospitable conditions. Others throw up their hands and spread a layer of river rock or gravel across the entire strip, hoping to reduce maintenance but often creating a weed-friendly or barren heat island along the curb — not the curb appeal most of us want.

Photo by Joshua McCullough

Less-lawn crusader Evelyn Hadden, an author and speaker from Minnesota who recently relocated to Boise, Idaho, takes on this nebulous public-private space in her new book, Hellstrip Gardening: Create a Paradise Between the Sidewalk and the Curb (2014, Timber Press). Considering that the hellstrip is only a small portion of the average yard, this is a meaty book. Part 1 offers in-depth looks at a dozen curbside gardens, and Hadden performs her usual magic trick of including images of gardens from a range of regions — which I know from experience is not easy unless you do a lot of garden-based travel or have a generous photo budget. Photographer Joshua McCullough is credited for providing most of the images, and they are lovely, as is the design of the book — i.e., plenty of eye candy.

Photo by Joshua McCullough

Part 2 addresses the challenges involved in gardening along the street, from tree roots and HOA rules to car damage and utility maintenance. In Part 3, Hadden offers design solutions specific to curbside gardening, including the types of plants to choose (non-precious and self-repairing) and using berms or rain gardens to address noise or drainage issues. The final section, Part 4, is a generous list of hellstrip-worthy plants organized usefully by showy flowers, showy foliage, culinary or medicinal uses, and four-season structure. As with any plant list geared to a country as geographically and climatically diverse as the U.S., only some of the plants will be applicable to central Texas gardeners, but it’ll get you thinking about the types of plants you might use.

Photo by Evelyn Hadden

Hadden’s emphasis throughout the book is on gardening sustainably, with less water and minimal or no chemicals, encouraging each of us to do our part to create more beautiful, runoff-absorbing, wildlife-friendly spaces. She’s realistic in her assessment that curbside gardens are generally more work to keep up than plain old lawn, but she points out the many benefits they provide in return: community beautification, crime reduction, wildlife waystations, runoff filtration, and more.

The only quibble I have is that many of the gardens covered are not, strictly speaking, hellstrip gardens between street and sidewalk but front-yard gardens as a whole. It often reads, therefore, more like a front-yard gardening book rather than one tightly focused on curbside conditions. Still, there’s plenty of hellstrip to go around, and the extra coverage of entire front yards is a bonus for those looking to garden up little-used lawns. This is, after all, a topic near and dear to my own heart!

BOOK GIVEAWAY
I’m happy to be able to offer a copy of Hellstrip Gardening, courtesy of Timber Press, to one lucky reader. To be entered, simply leave a comment on this post. One comment per person only. Giveaway is limited to U.S. and Canada.

This giveaway runs through Monday, July 14, at 11:59 pm CT, and I’ll announce the winner here on Tuesday the 15th. Check back next Tuesday to see if you won, and good luck!

Disclosure: Timber Press sent me a copy of Hellstrip Gardening for review. I reviewed it at my own discretion and without any compensation. This post, as with everything at Digging, is my own personal opinion.

Hello! I'm Pam Penick, a dirt-under-my-nails, hoping-for-rain, spiky-plant lover gardening under the Death Star in Austin, Texas (zone 8b). Here's where I share all the gardening goodness I can dig up, not just in Austin but wherever I go. Want to know more? Read Meet Pam and My Gardens. Or drop me a line and say hi.